Telstra cops ACMA fine for service standard breaches

Telstra was warned over eight payphone removals where consultation failed to met the regulatory requirements.

ABC TV

Telecommunications giant Telstra has been hit with a $510,000 fine by the communications regulator for missing service standards.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority says it issued the administrative penalty yesterday for Telstra's failure to meet customer service targets for timely new urban landline connections.

The benchmarks are set under Telstra's Customer Service Guarantee, which was a condition of the company's privatisation, and set minimum standards for new connections, fault repairs and attending customer appointments.

ACMA says there are nine benchmarks, and Telstra met seven of them.

The regulator said Telstra missed the 90 per cent benchmark for new urban connections, with performance of 88.6 per cent - a shortfall of 3,938 connections.

It also narrowly missed the remote area connection benchmark of 90 per cent, with an 89 per cent performance translating to a shortfall of just eight connections - the telco was not fined, but merely warned, for this breach.

ACMA says, in determining the fine and formal warnings, it took into account Telstra's positive and early responses and cooperation with the regulator, as well as extreme weather events which had affected the company's network, especially in remote areas.

In a statement, Telstra says it strives to meet the required service obligations, but difficult circumstances caused the misses last financial year.

"We aspire to get this right every time. Unfortunately, sometimes we don’t live up to this goal and circumstances beyond our control impact our ability to do so," the company responded.

"Last year, we faced unprecedented damage to our network from natural disasters. We fixed more than one million faults for our customers and a number of events, such as the Queensland floods, Tasmanian fires and Warrnambool Exchange fire, placed great strain on our network and resources across the country."

Payphone warning

Telstra was also warned over several technical breaches of consultation requirements regarding the removal of payphones.

The company is required to consult with stakeholders in an area before removing a payphone.

"In all these cases we did engage with the community, however did not strictly comply with all of the required steps," Telstra said in its statement.

"While we believe that there has been no customer detriment, we take our regulatory obligations seriously and have committed to take a number of other steps to strengthen compliance with the payphone determinations."

ACMA's chairman Chris Chapman agrees that Telstra has been increasing its cooperation with the regulator.

"I welcome Telstra’s improvements already implemented and its commitments to the ACMA to further improve its internal governance in these areas of operations, as well as its operational processes and systems," he said.

"Telstra has also committed to more regularly engage with the ACMA about its service improvements and performance."

The size of the fine imposed on Telstra is mandated by the regulations, and relates to the margin by which it missed its service obligations.